SAC Carl Pointer Training Diary 24 August 2011

L to R Carl, Danny, Coach, Luke and Steve

Wednesday 24^th August, the day we had all dreaded! And for a good reason too. Today our aim was to climb 3 mountains, eventually ending up at the Coach’s place of residence, 6hrs later, all on our mountain bikes. (Ruhpolding-Rosenheim).

Fizzy apple juice and asking for more strength

This morning I was in charge of the  ab circuit, so everyone begged me not to torture their core muscles just before the cruel bike ride. Loads of cereal and energy was stuffed into our systems and all admin squared away for the teams longest bike ride up to date!
Throughout the ride we were all in pain, but we just had to keep pushing! At the top of the first mountain, (which was the biggest at 1500m) we sat down for an ice-cold, refreshing,fizzy apple drink...(Mmmmm :P)

Carl, Luke and Matt looking mean!!!

3Hrs into the beasting and so much had happened already. Apart from crossing into Austria and back, we met up with the Boss at the half way checkpoint to refill water bottles etc and we had also unfortunately lost a team member. Matt, after completing only 1 out of 3 mountains, had been broken mentally and physically ;-0. (Disappointing! But hey, you can’t be good at everything right?). What we didn’t know was that we’d covered 55 km up to that point so Matt had given his all.

Everybody knew there were 2 more mountains to climb, (depressing right?) but we all kept our heads up and smashed it.

On approaching heaven! I mean the white-fleet, military vehicle at the lake in Rosenheim sighs of relief were let out, that was it! Boom! We had travelled across 3 mountains in 5hrs and 30mins, covering a total of 88.8 km according to Coach’s bike computer. Absolute pounders comes to mind lol. After bad sun tanning lines, cramps, numb balls and soar arse's the luscious, cool waters of the lake soothed our pain, ahhhh :)

Pounding it out!!!

From the lake we drove to the Coach’s house, where we had a nice beer, some homemade cake and we were also read 'The Gruffalo' by the Boss, which was an interesting twist to the day lol.
Training camp 2 = completed... Bring on the next camp! ;)